r/Cardiophobias

Chest pain during exercise after months of health anxiety
I’m 15M, and I’ve been dealing with severe health anxiety since around February, mainly because I was constantly afraid that I was having a heart attack.
I went to the ER multiple times and had around 6 ECGs, 2 cardiology evaluations, and a chest X-ray. Everything came back normal, and doctors reassured me that my heart was healthy. I also started therapy, including EMDR, from around March to July, and over June and July I was doing much better. I was sleeping normally again and the fear of dying had mostly gone away.
About 3–4 days ago, I suddenly started exercising more. I did around 60 push-ups, then the next day I ran about 4 km. During the run, I felt quite a lot of pressure in my chest while exercising, which scared me.
After that, I continued doing push-ups and developed more chest pain. Yesterday, I went to play basketball and felt fine while playing, but when I tried doing a pull-up afterward, I got chest pain again. Since then, the pain seems to happen mainly when I move or under exercise.
Now I’m scared that something is wrong with my heart, especially because the pain has sometimes been on the left side of my chest. I’m also afraid of exercising or going to sleep because I’m scared something could happen to me.
Could this simply be muscle/chest wall pain from suddenly doing a lot of push-ups, running, basketball and pull-ups, or should I get checked again because of the chest pressure during running? Im so scared please someone helo me i dont wanna die all of a sudden

Hi, I recently started transitioning, but it abruptly stopped because my mom threw away the hormones. That same day that she did that, I ended up in the ER. I don't know if it was anxiety or what, but I was severely out of it. Super lightheaded for hours, and I was in a state of panic. Since I had been experiencing lightheadedness nearly everyday while on estradiol, I was slowly becoming convinced that I was in a medical crisis. Even though they ran a blood test that night (in addition to taking my EKG, blood pressure, heart rate, etc.), I am convinced I have a clot now because like a day or two after that er visit, I started feeling short of breath and it has persisted almost nonstop to the present (so like over 10 days). I just got my vitals checked today (minus a blood test), and they were fine. I'm getting poking sensations in my chest and minor shortness of breath as I type this. This is causing me severe mental agony at this point. I don't know if this is health anxiety or what. I feel like I missed my opportunity today to get definitive proof that I don't have a clot by not asking for a blood test. What do I do? I feel trapped and life is honestly becoming unbearable.

I (25F) am going through the process of transitioning to a new job. I suffered a family member loss last year.

About the beginning of July of this year, I experienced chest pressure/tightness with shortness of breath. It did feel like I had something seriously wrong going on. Went to the ER and they did X-Ray on my lungs and heart. Then I was told it was just anxiety and followed up with my primary doctor. I also got prescribed Xanax but the chest pressure never went away.

Now, I would have chest pressure/tightness and feel like I can’t breathe throughout days. Got myself an oxymeter, has been monitoring myself with it and it’s been showing my oxygen levels in the high 95+.

These days, it’s accompanied with lower heart rate (low 50s to 60s). I’m starting to feel crazy because I know the more I pay attention, the more worse it gets.

I honestly don’t know what to do.

its 4:05 am and i'm convincing myself that since i had a 2 week long panic attack and barely ate my low potassium has dropped low enough i'm going to have cardiac arrest at any second because i have muscle spasms in my leg. why did i learn what cardiac arrest is heart attack is much less scary in comparison

Hey I'm F16, 5'4 and 48 kgs , ive been having the following symptoms for the last 1 month,

1. Sudden increase in Heart rate (80 to 140ish)

2.dizziness

3. Mild breathlessness

4.mild pain in right arm

5.chest pain

6.heart pain

Could this just be panic attacks or could something be wrong with my heart. Please tell me I'm really afraid

I know the drill and I have gone through this thousands upon thousands of times. But this time feels different I say that every time too. But this one really does.

I just was getting in bed to lay down and suddenly I can’t breathe. Feels like I forgot how to breathe. Hard to get a deep breath. A little bit of chest pain. My muscles are so tense right now. I really really do not want to call 911. I think I might have to, though. If anyone is awake, can you someone please help talk me through this right now?

The reason I don’t wanna call 911 is because of the number of times I have already called 911 over the last several months. There is a specific reason also that I don’t want to call 911. But I’m going to save that for another post. Nothing has ever been found to be wrong with me. Which should be reassuring, but it is not because all that that tells me is that I was not having a heart attack at that precise moment in time. That doesn’t help me for all the other times. Or this time.

For some context, I went to the emergency room in early March of this year, and at that point had a whole battery of test done. Whenever I call an ambulance, I usually just get the EKG done in the back of the ambulance. It was back in March when I did the chest x-ray and the bloodwork and some other tests. Everything looked completely normal. I am a 36-year-old female with no history of heart disease nor does my family have history of heart disease. I have debilitating anxiety on multiple fronts and have been dealing with panic disorder for about 12 years or so. The panic attacks come and go and I’ll get a whole lot of them in a short amount of time followed by absolutely none for amount of time and it just varies. I am unaware, at least consciously, of any obvious trigger for the attacks. The trigger for my panic attacks typically are an elevated heart rate or something that draws my attention to my heart. I don’t necessarily have to have been exercising either. It could be something random. It could’ve been the cup of coffee I had six hours prior. I just don’t know. Yet on other days, I can drink 6 cups of coffee and NOT have a panic attack. Whatever it is, though, it is mostly a random and intense onset that seemingly comes out of the blue. I pretty much just avoid anything that will elevate my heart rate. It’s so fucking annoying.

Typing all of this out and getting it off my chest definitely is helping me a little bit. Sometimes talking about it helps. But if there’s anyone out there right now, I could really use some support right now. Anything at all. Even if you don’t have advice or any solution, just hearing that I’m not alone makes me feel better. I hope this goes away soon.

My resting heart rate seems high 90s-100s, I barely see it lower and this is me laying down.
I don’t know if this is a red flag and I know watches aren’t good for me but it’s like a compulsion usually it should be like in the 70s or something I mean I’m only 22 years old..I don’t know how to improve it and get this junk out as my head

Will this harm me long term? I know I’m bedbound but I wanna be better. I wanna walk

I'm just laughing at myself (in between crying) because I've been terrified of a high heart rate for ages, I monitor, check my pulse, make sure my heart rate comes down okay. And now I'm on BP meds and sometimes a beta blocker, and my resting heart rate as gotten down to 60 on the beta blocker and now I panic because of a lower heart rate. What heart rate will I be happy with?! WHO KNOWS🫠

20M , 175 cm , 84kgs , light smoker , meds im currently on- fluvoxamine , anastrazole, sulbutiamine , so today i was just doing my workout and right after i finished my set i noticed a skipped beat which i in the first few seconds didnt really pay attention to cuz it sometimes happens when im stressed sleep deprived, but right after that flutter sensation my heart rate shot up super high , i could feel my heart beating out of my chest this was happening alongside with the fluttering sensation

I was too scared to check my pulse during that event even though i coukd but im sure it was well above 200 bpm then 30 seconds later it reset and suddenly dropped and the fluttering went away too , i didnt have any other symptoms just that , now im panicking if i had a svt or what , please advice what it could be and what steps should i take now to ensure safety, last nigjt i also took 0.75 mg melatonin btw 🙏

Edit : i usually have a pretty low resting heart rate in the mid 50s and after a set my hesrt rate does go upto 150s but its a gradual increase and decrease not like this , and i have gad too

22M im completely lost here. So about 36 hours ago yesterday night I woke up in middle of sleep / night or very early morning and I was like half a minute awake when i felt a hiccup or pvc or pac in chest (very often have these) and that is when i pressed my neckpulse as reflex because of cardiophobia and that was when i felt it, nothing, in not even anxiety but disbelief after like 2/3 seconds i said out loud it stopped, then violently turned to back (was laying on left side still) to continue monitoring and after like 2 seconds on back i felt the nekpulse again without really moving finger and like 80bpm hr in chest, before the pvc it was probably around 45-50 and very soft beating. I know it was 5-7 seconds because I recall all the events and it was so long that i realised said out loud turned over etc.

I will go to doctor and will ask for a holter for as long as possible but im kind of lost here because these events are very rare depending on the trigger so the holter can easily miss it, and whats next then, waiting until suddenly passing out? Also i dont even recorded it so the doctor might say you was sleep drunk or something… this feels like a 100% lose situation…

Also during this pause i had no symptoms but gravity wasnt working against me laying in bed so doesnt mean much. I dont really know if it was a pause or not maybe i missed the pulse which was faint anyway because my body was in rest mode and the adrenaline after made the hr stronger and faster but there is to many coincidences, one of them is literally that pressing the neck pulse just under jaw where i pressed can cause a blood pressure nervoussystem reflex that litterally causes a pause like this, i dont know anymore

Hello, I'm a 30yr male and I've been experiencing some pretty uncomfortable anxiety symptoms recently and I was hoping someone could relate to me. Here are my symptoms.

Random strong surge in chest like a palpitation but only lasts a second. When it happens I get an ungrounded feeling. Scares the life out of me.

Intense angst or excitement type of feeling in my throat right above breastbone. I also have this in the center of my chest.

Daily headaches that sometimes turn into migraines.

Unsteady on my feet all the time. Feels sometimes like I lose sense of my footing or my equilibrium goes out of wack like I'm floating.

I'll get moments of nausea and anxiety so strong it makes me want to sit down because I get like tired or something.

Tingling in my forehead.

Eye strain.

And vestibular system feels really off.

That chest and throat feeling though is very hard to explain.

I've had a mountain of medical workup done with multiple er visits. All look pretty normal.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

i really just need some hope and i know a lot of people here probably have had this. i’ve had 2 d dimers and they were both normal. i read on the clot survivors reddit about people who had a pe with normal d dimer. i just left the er for the 3rd time in 3 weeks. the pa told me that a d dimer would be through the roof if i had a pe, but that’s clearly not true and i’ve read it. i got a leg scan this time and i don’t have dvt because i had sudden calf pain. i’ve had shortness of breath though for about 2 weeks. i haven’t been able to eat or sleep normally for this entire time. i’m extremely terrified. i’m worried that they’re missing it because they didn’t do a ct just like they did for people on the clot survivors reddit where it found it without a ct or when they were refused one as well. i’m scared because the people i’ve seen saying this have been around my age (i’m 18 and they were like 18-25) and i’ve read just about every post on there. i’m so so so scared

Just wanted to commiserate and vent that I’m once again in the ER and I’m pretty sure it’s costochondritis.

I came in because it was getting worse and started traveling to my neck and my left shoulder and arm. Since I also have high blood pressure, I wanted to ensure that it’s not a cardiacs event.

As usual, my bp is high, more than at at home and I’m freaked out. I went to doctor last week and my bp was 118/81, so the high number also made me tense more and hurt more.

Just want some commiserating and hope no one else is going through this right now.

Edit: My Bp at the hospital was 162/111 and 158/98 when I got discharged. At home, the next day, it was 123/85 and 134/86 at the doctors.

Just nuts how high my BP goes up in the ER.

So about 5 days ago I noticed mild cold like symptoms and then on day 3/4 I had horrible sleep and felt the worst I had felt and that following morning on day 4 my heart was elevated staying between 90-100 mainly right around 100. I went to urgent care that day and I have flu b and the doctor said my heart rate being elevated was normal because my bodies fighting a virus. It’s the next day now and I’m feeling a lot better except my hearts still in that elevated range, I have health anxiety pretty bad so this is making me worried despite the doctor saying I’m fine. I just wanna know if anyone else has experienced this and if it really is normal.

I was in my room in the dark ,on my phone when something got thrown on me and it felt like I was in another dimension for a second and it felt like my heart stopped beating. It was just a pack of cookies that my brother threw on me but I got so scared that my chest started hurting for a few minutes after. I have constant anxiety so even touching my back or moving sporadically makes me scared but this was on another level. My younger brother also keeps scaring me because he thinks it's funny that I get so scared easily but after my shoulder subluxated(popped in and out immediately, causing weakened muscles and higher chance of recurring subluxations which has happened 4 times so far) from him scaring me, he still keeps doing it 😭

If this is considered medical, please let me know and I will remove this post immediately

i’m 18 and i’ve had on and off shortness of breath for 2 weeks and i’m terrified i’m having a pulmonary embolism but i feel like it’s gotten worse tonight. i’ve been to the doctor/er 6 times and my d dimer was fine last week but this evening i had pain in the back of my calf. i got so scared i threw up and am shaking so bad. i really don’t feel well i can’t eat i can’t sleep. my parents yelled at me all night and said they won’t take me to the er again and they’re done. they’re threatening to get me admitted and they won’t go through with it but honestly i feel like it might be for the best because then i’d be monitored but idk i don’t know how to make it through this night i don’t feel well at all. they went to bed and said i can call 911 if i want. i‘m so scared please help me